Chong Chu-wol, A Korean Poet in Osaka Ikaino, Japan

Yu, Sook-Ja

A second-generation 'Zainichi'(在日, Korean resident in Japan) poet, Chong Chu-wol wrote poetry and essays about people from all walks of life and their everyday experiences in the ...

Chong Chu-wol, A Korean Poet in Osaka Ikaino, Japan

Yu, Sook-Ja

A second-generation 'Zainichi'(在日, Korean resident in Japan) poet, Chong Chu-wol wrote poetry and essays about people from all walks of life and their everyday experiences in the Korean community in Osaka Ikaino. The collections of her poems are the Collections of Poems by Chong Chu-wol (1971) and Ikaino/Woman/Love/Songs: the Collection of Poems by Chong Chu-wol (1984). Her collections of essays are Ikaino Taryong (1989) and I Love You (1987). There was a relatively long gap after the publication of first collection of her poems at the beginning of 1970 and the second collection of her poems and the collections of her essays that were published in the middle of 1980's; this gap had to do with her interest in Korean politics and society at the time.
In the history of the literature of Koreans in Japan, Chong Chu-wol's works are at the mid-point between Ri Kai-sei (1935- ) and Kin Kakuei (1938-1985) --second-generation Zainichi writers-- and Yi Yang-ji (1955-1992), the highly celebrated new-generation (3rd generation) writer. Unlike these elite writers who attended university and who were active in literary circles and recognized for their literary talent, Chong Chu-wol was based in a humble area on the outskirt of Ikaino and wrote poems while making a living with hard labor. Accordingly, physical fatigue, poverty, nostalgia and regrets deeply color her poems. In Chong Chu-wol's poems, Ikaino's common language--a unique mixture of the dialects of Jeju Island and of Osaka--comes to live conveying the unique sentiments and emotions of Koreans living in Japan, defying the other constructed by the Japanese language and exploring new possibilities.
What should be particularly noted in her poems and essays is the poet's affection for the emotions of the Korean women leading a tortuous existence in Ikaino. Although Korean women in Ikaino tend to be doubly oppressed under the Confucian patriarchy, they are broad-minded enough to extend their motherly love to the Korean men suffering in the adverse conditions of 'living as Zainichi'. The women's willingness to embrace the men while enduring their violence may very well be an expression of self-protection refusing to be hurt further. Won Soo-il (1950- ), the writer, also depicted realistically Ikaino's first-generation Korean mothers from Jeju in his collection of short stories, Ikaino Stories. To be sure, their love of life that seeks laughter and hopes in tears has helped build Ikaino of Osaka what it is.
But, in a short story by Kim Chang-saeng (1951- ), we should also note the second-generation Zainichi protagonist who refuses the lives of sacrifices and obedience of the first-generation Korean mothers and chooses to stand alone, however difficult it may be, to have her own voice and life. This is an expression of her will to lead her own life rather than subjecting it to others.
Chong Chu-wol reacts sensitively to the political changes and social trends in Korea in her desire to share the pain of the era with her compatriots. To the poet, the Gwangju Uprising of 1980 was the juncture where the history of Zainichi and the Korean history intersected. She lives the life of Zainichi but yearns to share the pain of the struggling compatriots in Korea, and thus to 'transcend the being of Zainichi'. The poet's existential search for the meaning of life as Zainichi takes on the perspective of the love of the humankind as she looks deeply into the Korean and Japanese societies.
Key words: Osaka Ikaino, Zainichi(Korean resident in Japan), Literature of Koreans in Japan, Gwangju Uprising, identity, femininity, the first-generation Korean mothers, Jeju Island