I'd like to spread Mother’s Will 'I have an ardent wish that the two neighboring countries would be without strife' This is what the former prime minister of Japan, Junichiro Koizumi, recited in the Korea Japan Summit Meeting of 2005. It was written by Son Hoyon, the only Tanka Poet of Korea.
Son learned Tanka while studying in Tokyo in the Japanese Colonial era. She learned that poetry was influenced by Korean poetry when she met Professor Susumu Nakanishi for the first time. Susumu Nakanishi, who came up with the new era name for Japan ‘Reiwa’, said that “Tanka came from Baekje 1300 years ago. You should visit River Baekma in Buyeo first if you want to write better poems”
Son thought that she should continue the history of our poetry after the Tanka was disappeared from the Korean penninsula. She became a master of Tanka after strenuous endeavor, and she mostly wrote about her wishes for peace of her home country and East Asia.
I bring up my mother because I am thinking about the current cold relations of Korea and Japan. I am thinking about my mother’s will which expressed her hopes for peace, even though she went through Japanese invasion of Korea, Japanese colonization, Korean war and the modern history of adversity.
'I, having lived on the edge of East Asia, wishes only for peace'
Things were so bad when the leaders of Korea and Japan met in the Korea Japan summit of 2005. Yet I feel frustrated that people seem to be forgetting that things are this dire, the Korea Japan relations are worse that they are in danger of being severed.
Now I collect myself and ponder over situations. It’s frustrating to see Japanese Goverment's narrow mindedness.
In 1592 they invaded a good people who have never invaded another country. They invaded us again in 7 years. They fought Qing on the Korean peninsula in 1894, arguing that they were doing it for “peace in the East Asia ” and fought Russia in 1904 because Russia was trying to take over Chosun, and after the Japan Korea Treaty of 1905 which deprived Korea of diplomatic sovereignty, Japan annexed Korea in 1910.
For 35 years, they occupied Korea and tried to annihilate its language and national consciousness. The people who prided themselves on not bothering others did this. And what did we do to them? Is it just because of our supreme court’s forced labor ruling? Do they think they apologized already and that’s enough?
My mother, the Korean poet whom Japan loved, lived a quiet life. While she was alive, I never heard a word of resentment about the pain or difficulties she experienced during the Japanese colonial area.
And I found this paragraph in her script for a special lecture commemorating the 100th anniversary of her ala mater in Tokyo. “After the lecture, I was approached by my Japanese classmates who graduated from a primary school in Seoul with me. They said that they came to apologize for the past wrongdoings and bowed politely. The sense of resentment from decades ago, against the Japanese who discriminated me, melted away. it was a moment when the past conflict dissolved.”
My mother was a forgiving person. I didn’t know that such resentment existed in a person like my mother and I realize that sincere apologies do indeed resolve ill feelings.
'I stroke mugunghwa and cherry blossoms wishing the neighboring countries will be close to heart too'
And despite all this, the poet shows her hope that the two countries will be close like this. Now I understand my mother’s deep feelings that chose the word ‘medete’ that I translated as ‘stroke’. Her scar from the discrimination and hardships during the Japanese colonial era and the pain of being unable to learn Korean while living in Korea was such that it was hard to forgive. Yet, it took courage to make a resolution, my mother made a resolution to stop conflicts.
That is right. We should make a resolution like that. There is no assurance that there will be no more conflicts like this in the future. Therefore, we as individuals should make a resolution to stop conflicts, not just trusting the indifferent politicians.
We should remember that Korea and Japan are neighbors, our descendants will have to live side by side even in the 31st and 41st century in this shrinking world. And we should let the whole whold know that the two countries have truly reconciled.
That is why I am trying to spread 'Mother’s ardent will' that 'the two countries would be without strife'
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